Bidding farewell to Ezra Schwartz, American victim of Palestinian terror

It was eerily quiet in the old Ben Gurion Airport building in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, considering the bustle of vacationers flying out to Eilat. In fact, of the 500 people gathered, many of them were students spending the year after high school in Israel's yeshivas, seminaries, and assorted other programs. Still others were former neighbors of the Schwartz family, those who have made aliyah from the Boston suburb of Sharon, Mass., over the years—including this reporter.

Days ago, Ezra Schwartz, age 18, was just another one of the tens of thousands who spend their "gap year" after high school here in Israel. Until he was shot and killed by a member of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. On Nov. 19, a carful of yeshiva students including Schwartz was stuck in traffic. The day's agenda: dropping food to IDF soldiers and visiting Oz Vegaon, the park set up in Gush Etzion in memory of the three Jewish teens kidnapped and killed by Hamas last summer.